Evening Star Newspaper, September 3, 1929, Page 12

“No—but what do you mean? Wasn't i it fear- 8 Ter mfif’zfi?"' s dream? You saw (. es, there was fear,” I muttered. I flelt ata bh:u for an mfle{ b‘;You know, may ‘wrong—| lieve r sister died vloohn:tly}‘ i es. She was murdered by stranglin| not two hours age.” L . fancy that here about me in’ - tme in the dark The Door of Death / i (c—‘vm'.:-.n'mwmvm.r and Metrosolitan Newsmpaver Bervice.) 4 (To be Continued.) “MAKES QUICK AIR TRIP. Fiyer Hops Across the Country in 17 Hours. | | ROOSEVELT FIELD, N. Y., Septem- ber 3 (/).—A monoplane piloted by E. L. Benway of Los Angeles, Calif., and carrying as passengers Benway's “Did you notice anything unusual | John and Morgan Belmont o, New upon entering the room? Yora, arrived here last night after a “‘Nothing—except that it was fully | fiight from Los Angeles. lighted, a5 1t is now. As a rule, Celia | - Benway seid their flying time was used only the bed lamp.” only 17 hours, nearly two hours less 1 looked up at a central chandelier, | than the time required by Capt. Roscoe which cast & rather harsh brilliance. | Turner in his Western trip across the It gave, however, excellent light for | continent. Turner established a record the examination I now made, and I|for planes carrying passengers, asked again, “Was your sister in !hefl‘ ‘The party, which left Los Angeles habit of wearing a collar or neck- | yesterday morning, came East for the Jace?” polo matches. Another remarhable Travel Bargain 5785’:”“ Washington One way special chair car and coach excursions, August 15 to September 15, inclusive. Fred Harvey station dining rooms and lunch rooms will save you money. ‘Three fast Santa Fe trains to choose from—The Navajo, Scout and Missionary—‘‘Santa Fe all the way.” Quick, comfortable—free reclining chair cars—automatic block signal safeguards. . Aok your 1oesl agent or sddress , | what last evening I heard compared to | the delicacy of a miniature should have become this mask. I told Eleanor to leave the room, but she only moved back a few s and stood leaning | against the wall, her eyes wide, un- seeing. ‘The bedclothes had been a trifle dis- turbed, as if Celia had attempted to rise_before sinking back. “Did you find her like this?” T asked. Eleanor nodded. you believe in gauu?" she asked. I answersd with a certain tremor that I did not, that I considered it'a outlived, you,” she " FIRST INSTALLMENT. save I OOKING back, it seems to me Mfimbmlqfi:flt that even my first arrival at et st Greyhouse was shadowed by subterfuge, secrecy and double- . * dealirig, as if, at its threshold, I hid been forced to assume & new and_equivocal attitude. I recall the misglving, or rather timidity, I felt on that Autumn night, as I dress- ed for dinner in the stately st room assigned me. Numerous scruples and questions presented them- selves, and. the more I considered the nature of my position theiess I liked it. Had it not beer, for my_friend- ship” with Eleanor Graham I would have escaped even then—indeed, ex- cept: for her and Carl Ballion, I should not have been there at all. Night time, together with silence and uncertainty, formed a cheerless pre- lude to the errand on which I been summoned. I asked myself of what kind was the mental disorder of Celia n-t.mb':“ twlut her suspect you of " not let "“l her. She believes in her i ons» ith an odd thrill, I saw the figure of a woman descending the stair; or, from our point of ol tion, 1% might we)l have seemed the figure of s child. That was my first impression of Celia Ballion; it has enduring one. She appeared so fradl against her background. She instilled somehow the sense of aloneness, of be- ing astray in an unfamiliar ‘rme Her footstep was \almost inaudible. Her hand ~fluttcred along the Theavy balustrade. I realized that Iywas not the only. one incongruous here: the mistress of Greyhouse herself was still thout speak farther removed from any L % e jons . Then, connection with her environment. A i) e L inion. o35 S Lt Sl | s 7 uud tet i out sl ‘whatever 1ce - Ballion, abotit, which her sister wanted | toward his wife existed on the part of | macidrie exp':’uh; hee allment, but that my opinion. To wimt obsession Prancis Ballion. I could understand | clearly in mortal fear of something con- Eleanor's letter yeferred? The vast-| pacause of his portrait, which fl- nected with her husband and this place. ness and country seclusion of the house. | phasized his abundant vitality. e | Therefore she must leave Greyhouse its hushed and shadowy spaces, seemed | yoman before me, slight as porcelain, | once. It's impossible to tell if tl to render the presence of insanity here | recalled an opposed breed, one of the | condition is permanent, except’ on more ill-omened and ‘sinister than in | race whose blood, grown thin, flows in | ohservation somewhere else.” usual surroundings, as if its chill were | gisciplined channels, who is capable of | * “Byt Francis might ob; spread along stairway and corridor.|devotion or sacrifiice, but always with little patience with But, used as I was by profession 10| an after-sense of duty. One could sort.” various forms of psychopathy, it Was|imagine her voice becoming shrill, but| 1 found it dicult to answer calmly, not_so much this that disturbed me, |never passionate. “Gas) Ballon ant T will persuade him 4 as the consclousness of being at Grey- rt, while admitting this, T was She made a gesture of d¢ ir. house under false pretenses. ;}:‘-“yh:l ed’u o’{' her unusual charm. mmprehonilble. find this e ex| , as it were, the fine aroma of distinguished menner, which vac- | house wonderful I e corded with the delicats chiseling of her features and exquisite grace of movement. I realized that one could love Celia Ballion as one loves the perfection of elegance, the nuance of a color, a remembered echo of music. She belonged to the domain of lovely and evasive perceptions. We for & moment chatting, when doors at the end of the hall | wvidng magpifi- cence. 'A high mirror at the end of | the room reflected me vaguely, spec- | trally. But movement was better thar | lying awake, and so I paced here and | there, having thrown on & dressing | gown, for the night was turning cold. of Eleanor's eyes, she stood up. going to my room. A good night, or all. No I'l find my way. For & moment she put her arms about Eleanor; then gave me her hand in a by aotd st o, ato0s Mg And what a_night—of wind the courtesy; Al L & nf ‘wine it Sy, St enod ! ‘A 72 i e U i o 3 , moved slowly toward the stairs, a dim | ( and e:urn of ‘l‘l:umlr Diast, cl’:nml’ figure in the twilight of the hall. the curtains, I caught sf of tree- For & while Eleanor Graham and I tops bent - ely, x'fi' skeletons wide than ever, T took up & book and read. but to this day I am unable to recall | its_subject. The clock atruck 2. ! It must have been shortly after that, | when, of & sudden, I leaned forward, listening. There came in a Iull be tween gusts of wind the sound, or rather shadow of a sound—that to | faculties less abnormally intent ,would have ' remained inaudiable—of = foof steps outside my door, a soft tread heard rather by weight than impact, not unlike the padding of a beast. Simply a measured pace or two—then lost by reason of the storm outside. So brief was the sound that I had ! difficulty in judging of its direction. My impression, however, was that i tended toward the left. an unfamilial section of the house, where I vaguely imagined a back stairway, I listened Iel.mfully. but hb.i-m nothing tu'r:l‘;r. t was presumably & servant enteging late or, indeed, I might have been mis- | taken as to hearing anything at all. I had returned to my reading when | 1 became conscious, beyond doubt this time, that some one was astir. A door opened. & knob turned somewhere: then silence, and suddenly a rustle along the corridor. 1 was already opening when a sharp knock rang out on the other side of the panel, and l* found myself face to face with Eleanor. Her dark dressing gown and the ob- | scurity of the hallway outlined her | features sharply. “Quick!” she said. *I thought I heard went to Celia's ‘Though obtensibly Eleanor's guest, T was actually an intruder. 1t did not set mesai:-ease to reflect that I had been invited here in the absence of Celia’s_husband, Francis Ballion, and precisely because he was absent:. mor to remember that, considering his wife's vagaries of né moment, he had refused bluntly to call in medical advice. It seemed to me that some reflection of him appeared in this house of his, in its remoteness and somber elegance, which implted a character aloof, self-complete, and intolerant of in-| terference. On_the other hand, his| wife, of course, believed in the reality of her delusions, and would resent the | scrutiny. of a stranger. But finally; if | there existed, as I had been led to| ‘believe, an- estrangement between hus- band and wife, to which her condition might be ascribed, here wasy I dabl g unbidden in family matters, a course -that. might. at first, but I have grown to love it. And, after all, there are a number of men more thoughtless and quick- tempered than Francis Ballion. At heart, I'm sure he loves her. What is there to fear Tell me, do you think her already insane?” How easily in my office could I have . 1 found myself tace to face with . . . “Quick!” she mid. | . Eleaner. “T thought I heard semething. . .. 1 went to Celia’s found an answer! Here, in these strange | cestral credulity. Of course, I rejected | Doubtless, the gale blowing outside » instilled something of its own unrest; o kyy The sbtorssat, Buk| - d 1d not free a nsanity? e abnormal. Buf “At all events,” T told her, “your |but above all, I could not myself | opened, and dinner was announced by | ¢1o difficulty consists in fiking a norm, | sister is not vet critically deranged. from memories of the evening. | The crisis, however, must not come. If | It was strange, I thought., that the | sul handsome servant in darklipn. degree of variance permissable in we can remove at once any danger of problem of Celia Ballion should have | 2 lvery.- The dining Toom, in KeeDING Hrewics anarp the frontiers of sanits with the rest of the house, was of large | 4raTing sharp the frontiers & an 3 | At the moment I felt myself oddly on | it, I believe surely that everything will | taken strong possession of me—a case, | dimensions and decorated in Venetan | ¢, ‘gefensive, resisting & thought that | be well.” after all, among hundreds not dis- | Vain predictions—more vain than | similiar. ‘If I could only rid myselt of style, But the place, though warm, impugned my own soundness, an_idea that wind between the trees of Grev- the pression that some truth, as| seemed cold. Our voices sounded thin . that intruded and returned absurd and ineffectusl The rattle of fork of | conyiction, namely, that, Celia Ballion | house, wailing and distraught, at its | yet_concealel, lurked behind her ' ap- e s I o e hiaa nounte | was somehow peculiarly sane, that we| phantom chase of pursuer and pursued! | parent derangement—the _inatinctive the attendant, lithe and noisel like | Instead were, as she insisted, blind.| We retired early, but I found sleep | sense of a solution almost within grasp. I foas; Topsy-turvydom! An effect of this|dificult. Between snatches of slumber | It was this. that prevented sleep. room. € 1 woke for in ly- long i t alertness of | I a detached s haunted night, emergence of £ detalls Fp—— 6. ©. Dillard. Dist. Pass. Agent santa Fe Rv #01.602 Finance Building Philade!phia Phones: Rittenhou d & moment ! casily lead tof deserved unpleasantness. On aul ity, then—namely that of Mrs. Ballion's sister and her ‘brother=in-la rt of an innocent conspiracy. But, owever: praiseworthy -the: motive; T could have wished for a less ambiguous introduction to & strange household, and looked forward to the evening with considerable uneasiness. To this, no doubt, my surroundings in part contributed. Although not as a rule I:;ywumble, I felt, and I be. lieve nd one could have helped feeling, the individuality of Greyhouse, as dis- tinguished from other places of the kind. It produced an almost haunting sense of the unusual, but for what reason was at first difficult to deter. mine. ‘The house was a modern eri- ean building, and I had seen other interiors arranged with s -like regard for space and solidity of furnishing, in- | deed decorated in the same fashion of the cold and splendid renaissance. The difference here was in what might be termed a discordance between the house and myself. Elsewhere, howgver slavishly a given period had been copied, I felt mno actual illusion of the past. But here I stood, clearly alien and in- congruous. It was in the complete- ness of thig impression, free from any sense of the artificial, that I found the distinction of Greyhouse to consist; and, because it was so complete, I felt lost, oppressed, overawed. The gilded pillars of the bed with its valance, the comfortable; but solitary, chairs, seemed scornfully impassive, as if they admitted no_conceivable reason for intrusion. Eleanor Graham met me at the foot | 00ked down, and there of the great stairs as I came down, and I could'not help noting that what was true of me in my relation to the house did not seem to apply to her. I remained out of place in the brilliant apaciousness of the hall, while she seemed one h it. 'erhaps nse of this difference, perhaps that I had forgotten how striking she .was both in beauty and charm of- presence, rendered our meet- | ing a littlé ‘more formal-than in the past. “I'm glad ‘you are heré,” she said, *“you can hardly realize haw glad.” But at the same time her manner showed piainly that it was the | physician rather than the friend she | weicomed, and there remained for me nothing but to express the desire of being of service. She drew me a little breathlessly to- ward the tall fireplace of carved gray marble, “We haye s few Celia comes " down. moments before I should like to Carl“Ballion—I formed |- strange In Mrs. Ballion's conversation. She talked easily on'a number of topics, nor was it until I asked the apparently harmless question as to when Greyhouse had been bulilt, that her answer unfold- ed what I had been led to expect. “Hundreds of years ago,” she said, “in evil days.” She had spoken in a calm, emotion- less voice, Without turning, I felt the chill of Eleanor Graham's “Of course,” she went on, “these walls were set up recently. But they are not Greyhouse. They are only the mask of Greyhouse, don’t you und d?” 1 made a rejoinder of some'kind. We ‘changed the subject; but gradually I became aware that as long as nothing connected with Greyhouse or the name Ballion. was mentioned she e rationally, indeed charmingly: a single reference, however, to her husband or surroundings drew, as it were, a mental curtain’between us. Even her brother- in-law, . Carl Ballion, whom I knew and admired, seemed included in the same ban. ‘I mentioned him with en- thusiasm. For an instant she smiled. he“Yo know him? What do you think | gifted individual,” T answered, | leader.in politics, a man with a future. “You forget his pa: She broke into strange laughter. ‘How blind you |are! Then more calmly, “Oh, I admit his attractiveness, with that blood and name—but ask Eleanor rather than me to sing his praises.” At this, I saw that Eleanor Graham e to me the first twinge of disappointment, which proved clearly enough that last Sum- mer’s friendship with her had ripened into something more. She spoke loyally now of Carl Ballion as one who had been a friend to them both, and even put ‘n a word for the house itself, which, for ‘her_part, she found beautiful. “Please interrupted the Ilatter tensely. “You don't understand, I hope, what its beauty means!” Curioue, I thought, the resemblance and the contrast between Mrs. Ballien and her sister. At first glance, they ap- peared ly unlike. Eleanor Graham's hair was dark, her features bolder. She was tall and, though. slender, every movement showed the' development that comes with exercise and ' health. In all this Celia was the direct contrary. It was i ‘an accent of speech, or per- haps of thought, something quaint and gracious, that similarity began—in this, and the shade of Eleanor’s eyes, which were light as Celia Ballion’s, abnormally Hght in contrast to her hair, and re- tell you what I know; then you can | called judge for yourself, but something must be done quickly. The last six months have made s marked difference.” “Have you any idea,” I asked, the cause of your sister’s iliness But she countered with another question: “Did you see. Carl Ballion, as T suggested in my Tetter? . What did he say?” “He was naturally reticent: but T gathered that his brother and sister- in-law_have been on strained terms of late. He told me that Mr. Ballion is highly temperamental, &t times in- | ponsiderate, and that he has been in the habit of more or less frequent absences from Greyhouse.” * She nodded thoughtfully. “Just as' tonight—otherwise I could bhardly have dared invite you. He ridicules Celia’s moods, Was that all | Carl said?” .. “Yes, except that he showed uneasi- ness about Mrs. Ballion's condition. And so you think,” I went on, “that these relations with her husband are the cause of what you fear?” She turned, holding out her hands toward the flames that curved around | the logs befere us. “I believe s0; but Celia does not. In his better moments, .no one can be as bout | devoted as Francis Baliion. = Look at |SP! . that painting there—did & more gallant man?” ‘The usual portrait leaves merely a. blur on the mind; but even now. after long years, I can still recall vividly the that Eleanor indicatéd at this . imperious face of Prancis Ballion, the compelling eyes, the leonine. head lifted in a sort of inallenable haughtiness, the dark, wav- ing hair. Hps, however, were parted in a smile so gracious as’to be lovable. I looked and the figure seemed to dilate, fill and give character to the ever see painting. “If he could forget his pleasures,” . '1l"||s studie: .2 nd col remember her a little more. But, I repeat, Celia does not connect her delusioris’ with his change of temper ‘or even withf their disputes, "“"fl”’"— e~ how I'm sure they centeg in “)mj nature,"T asked, “are these She_glancéd’ at the stalrway, before’ ‘answer “Perhaj s0. She hs and I would consider solid, fixed—th! about us— led the uncertain color of aqua- marine. But in hers burned youth at its height, whereas, upon meeting the glance of Celia, there recurred strange- ly the thought of twilight in Winter. Afterward, we gathered once more about the fire, and, at & nod from her sister, Eleanor turned down the lights, 80 that we sat half in darkness, half- facing the tumult of the flames. “You see, I like it better this remarked Celia. “A fire might be any- where; it might be in our room at home when we were children. Besides, it's a rkl.ml of magic circle, where one feels 0 Impressed by her voice, T was un- prepared for its excitement when she whispered suddenly: “If only that were not here!” If T didn't have to see that and remember. . . -!" Pollowing her glance, I noticed for the first time an object to which she apparently referred. It was nothing more than a coat of arms éarved in the slanting stone of the mantel above us, whereon was dipicted a falcon poised at_the zenith of his flight. The work- manship seemed to me peculiarly ‘beautiful. I should have e well to follow Eleanor's lead implicity, but, badly in- ired and inmomentary forgetfulness a little later, T Happened to inquire into what part of the house the doors op- nosite us at the far end of the hall opened. A reproachful glance warned me too late. “They are locked,” replied Celia. «It's the room where Prancis keeps-his library and colleetions. He has ap- propriate tastes. - You will find there ‘what he calls ‘the aids to eloquence’ - and, when I looked a question—“Oh, I'd rather not explain. I heard him eyplain them' once.” Her thin hands twisted about each other. After what seemed a long pause, she added. “You will find there also a Door of Death. interrupted: “Reme Fearing some kind of outburst, T hastened to affirm my interest—that, os the contrary, I was glad to hear of Mr. Ballion's collection. But I was { - B An Ancient Prejudice Has Been Removed I ) . -Gone is that ancient prejudice against cigarettes—Progress has been made. We removed the prejudice against cigarettes when we removed harmful cor- - rosive ACRIDS (pungent irri- tants) from the tobaccos. ©199, The Amerlean Tobaceo §o. Manufacturers ) Y ; EARS ago, when cigafettes were made without the aid of modern science, there originated that ancient prejudice against all cigarettes. That criticism is no lenger justified. LUCKY STRIKE, the finest cigarette you ever smoked, made of the choicest tobacco, properly aged and skillfully blended—“IT’S TOASTED.” TOASTING, the most modern ste; LUCKY STRIKE harmful irritants which* are factured in the old-fashioned way. 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